DC’s Filthy Fossil Fuel Addiction
Our lives are desperately dependent on fossil fuels. That’s how the system works. That’s how the system was built. And that’s how the system fails us.
Many of us are fighting the status quo with small changes: making personal choices that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. We bike rather than drive; we save energy and we choose renewables, or we avoid animal protein. These changes are important. They’re also not enough.
We need to free ourselves, as a society, from our fossil fuel addiction. We need to change the rules of the game. It’s time to get fossil fuel filth out of Washington DC — and our lives — for good.
Extinction Rebellion DC has launched a campaign to stop Washington Gas — the only company in the city that pipes toxic methane gas into your home — from spending $12 billion on more gas infrastructure.
If Washington Gas gets its way, then DC will lock in planet-heating fossil fuel pollution for decades to come. Its methane pipes will continue to poison DC residents, exposing our children to a cocktail of toxins that cause severe illness and early death. Washington Gas is a direct danger to the safety of DC’s residents. The company is destroying our health and our children’s future — and the DC Government is letting them get away with it.
DC’s Toxic Methane Secret
A danger to the safety of DC residents
Few people know that the gas piped into your home is methane. DC has some of the oldest underground methane gas pipes in the country, and these pipes are leaking large amounts of methane throughout the city.
There are thousands of gas leaks in the District. Over 70% of these are at hazardous levels, meaning they could explode at any moment, posing a severe and immediate threat to the city’s residents. In March 2022, an explosion caused by a cut gas line destroyed a four-story apartment building in Silver Spring. In total, 14 people were hospitalized and more than 200 were displaced. And in January 2024, a gas explosion leveled a convenience store, injuring one person and forcing dozens of toddlers to evacuate a daycare next door.
Gas leaks are also a major environmental justice problem. Black, Indigenous and people of color are more exposed to the dangers of leaking gas pipes than white people. Gas utility companies also fix these leaks faster in white neighborhoods.
Even if all the leaks are fixed, more leaks will occur. The only true way to keep us safe from gas leaks and explosions is to stop pumping methane gas through our streets and into our homes.
A silent killer in our homes
Methane gas kills. It severely harms the health of DC’s residents, especially the most vulnerable — children, the elderly, and people experiencing homelessness. When you light your stove, it sends nitrogen dioxide into your home. That can cause cardiovascular problems, respiratory disease, and premature death.
A lit stove also produces a poisonous cocktail of other chemicals and gasses like formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide. Some of these can cause cancer and birth defects.
Children in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to have asthma than children whose families use electric stoves, a similar rate to children living with cigarette smokers. Indoor air pollution harms poor and Black children the most — children in Ward 8 are 10 times more likely to go to the hospital because of an asthma attack than children in wealthier parts of DC.
Outdoors, methane gas appliances drive poor outdoor air quality across the District and contribute to the formation of smog, which is linked to over 1 million premature deaths each year globally.
Racial-ethnic minorities in the United States are also exposed to disproportionately high levels of ambient fine particulate air pollution — the largest environmental cause of human mortality. Burning methane gas on gas stoves is one of the primary reasons for this grave injustice.
And stoves continue to leak methane into our homes even when they’re turned off.
So why do we think we love our gas stoves so much? Because the fossil fuel industry told us to.
Burning down the house
Methane is 80 times more powerful at heating our planet than carbon dioxide. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are so high that they’re now responsible for 30-50% of the global rise in temperatures. Leaking gas pipes, like those in DC, are a major source of US methane emissions. The amount of methane the fossil fuel industry releases is way worse than regulators think. And gas stoves release the same amount of greenhouse gas as half a million cars.
Gaslit - an industry built on lies
Washington Gas loves to tell you that its gas is “renewable,” “clean,” “natural,” “responsible,” and “green.” This is a lie. Greenhouse gas emissions from the use of methane gas now exceed coal emissions in the United States. This gas is poisonous, non-renewable and highly destructive. And Washington Gas’ plan to replace DC’s methane infrastructure is deeply irresponsible, threatening the health and safety of every single resident in DC.
Find out more
The gas industry also loves to tell you that methane is a “bridge” or “transition” fuel that will wean us off our dependency on coal, thus reducing emissions. Governments have bought this lie. Production is rising so fast that methane is replacing coal as the dominant fuel powering the electricity sector and millions of homes. We’re just swapping one fossil fuel for another — and that huge rise in methane gas use is actually causing greenhouse gas emissions to increase . Don’t believe the industry’s lies. There is no such thing as “clean” gas.
Criminal leadership
Washington Gas’ plans set us further along the path to climate hell, societal collapse, and mass extinction.
The failure of the city’s government and its regulators to stop Washington Gas is an abdication of leadership. Methane is poisonous and it heats up the planet faster than any other greenhouse gas. Yet the city’s administration is letting Washington Gas pump billions of dollars into the city's methane infrastructure. And we are the ones paying for this deadly infrastructure with our money and our lives.
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“The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home," the UN secretary general said after the release of the latest IPCC report. Washington Gas is one of the arsonists. And DC’s politicians are aiding and abetting the greatest crime in history.
The council’s failure to protect its people is more than irresponsible. It is criminal. DC’s councilors have a duty and an opportunity to protect the people they serve by telling the truth about the severity of the climate crisis and by acting now to get fossil fuel filth out of our city. The world is in crisis and half measures won’t cut it.
SO WHAT DO WE WANT?
DC’s politicians cannot claim to be serious about tackling the climate crisis if they allow Washington Gas to go ahead with its plans. In 2022, DC pledged to become carbon neutral by 2045. Washington Gas’ plans make achieving this goal impossible.
We are living through a rapidly closing window of opportunity to address the climate and ecological crisis, and it’s never been clearer that those in power are committing us to global breakdown.
It is time to expose the lie and Tell The Truth.
Read our letter to Chairman Mendelson and the rest of the D.C. Council here.
XRDC demands that the DC Council:
1) Make a public statement that Washington Gas’ plans to replace and use the capital’s methane gas infrastructure will make it impossible for the city to meet its goals to combat the climate crisis.
2) Direct the Public Service Commission to end the pipe replacement project, other than emergency repairs needed to protect the health and safety of residents.
3) Commit to immediately start working with the city’s administration on a just transition plan that prioritizes DC’s most marginalized people and ends the city’s reliance on gas by 2032.
Join Us Today
These demands are winnable. But to win, we need an unprecedented level of resistance. We will train and bring hundreds of people into the streets in nonviolent civil resistance.
Here’s how you can plug in:
Get Informed: Come to a Heading for Extinction talk and learn about the current climate science, XR’s theory of change and why non-violent direct action works (in person or virtual).
Get Involved by attending our next Intro to XRDC call and learn how you can plug in.
Get trained: NVDA trainings
Together we can End Methane and Electrify DC!
